You're Afraid Of Bigfoot
by sockstar
Summary: Spencer wants protection from Bigfoot. He also realises his desire to protect another. Sam/Spencer, Carly/Freddie. Oneshot.


**You're Afraid Of Bigfoot**

**Rating: **T

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**Summary: **Spencer wants protection from Bigfoot. He also realises his desire to protect another.

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You've been tossing and turning and you finally give in to the urge to get up when a sharp crack of thunder fills the RV you were attempting to sleep in. You don't know what convinced you to come out in the middle of nowhere to hunt for 'Bigfoot'. The rain has been pouring down in buckets all day, and every so often another flash of lighting brightly illuminates the dark, followed by the report of thunder shaking the ground.

It felt like a good idea at the time.

The kids seemed okay with it. Although kids is something of a misnomer now. Young adults would be more appropriate. It scares you how Carly is growing up before your very eyes. You only pray that she never has to grow up so fast or in such an abrupt manner as you did. When you were only just old enough to legally drink, your little sister was thrust upon you with barely so much as a thank you, as your Father left for deployment. That was years ago.

Your Mother was his life. When her life was taken, the Navy filled something of the hole that was left. So instead of helping to raise his own daughter, he hid his pain in a steel tube at the bottom of the ocean. Shaking the thoughts of abandonment out of your head, you get up, stretch out a little, and look over to the other side of the RV, and notice Carly is gone from the little couch/bed you gave up to her.

You all diced to decide who got to sleep where. Freddie threw a 6, Sam a 2, and you and Carly both rolled 4. Freddie offered the choice to Carly, who decided to sleep in the RV, you picked the RV because you were certain the tents would be cold and leaky, and that left Sam and Freddie outside.

He left, and now it's your job to take care of her.

At least, you think it's your job alone, but you realize differently in the days and weeks following this night.

You've also realize it's not just her you want to take care of.

So you pull on a jumper and step out into the rain. You never bothered taking your shoes off, the day was that exhausting. With a squelch, your shoes sink into the sodden ground, when you notice a small red light over on the far side of the make shift camp.

Another crack of lighting follows, and you can clearly see Sam, back lit by the white lighting, puffing on a cigarette. She cowers slightly when the thunder hits, before exhaling a long stream of smoke. A few normal breaths follow, fogging up in the cold of the night. You study the outline, despite the heavy layers she wears, you always notice her. You watch for a second, and think about how the girl in front of you was thrust into a similar circumstance as you. Growing up too fast, forced to take care of her mess of a mother all on her own. At least Carly can take care of herself, and even occasionally takes care of you. Sam does it all on her own, with no respite.

There is a fearful howl in the distance, almost like a cross between a wolf and a bear. It sounds close. You must have missed another lighting strike whilst watching her, as a huge clap of thunder rolls over. You jump up involuntarily, your heart starts racing and on the way down you step on a twig, it breaks in half and Sam is alerted to your presence.

"Hey." Sam turns to you, and you offer a meek greeting in exchange.

"Couldn't sleep?"

"Something like that."

She offers you a drag, you take it gladly. The heat fills your lungs, and you cough quite loudly. It's been a while. It's been even longer since it was a tobacco based product you smoked. Her laugh causes a few birds to scatter out of the trees, and you offer it back in return.

Sam pushes your hand away, "I shouldn't be smoking anyway." You shrug, and drop it to the dirt floor, and crush it beneath your heel.

"Do Freddie and Carl-"

"No. Carly's a good girl, and Freddie knows his life expectancy would severely drop if his mother found out."

You nod your head, glad that habit hasn't spread beyond Sam, and you then ask, "Did Carly come down to sleep with you in your tent? You know how she gets around thunder."

All you get back is a shake of the head, and a pointing finger to the other tent. As if to clarify, you hear Carly yell out "Freddie!" you hear what sounds like a slap, and then a fit of male and female giggling. You're glad for the laughter. No matter what her outward emotion was, you spent weeks huddled down with your sister as waves of emotion swept over her.

Within the space of a month, she'd been involved in 2 potentially fatal accidents. Before she'd had time to recover from the emotion of nearly losing her best friend and both their lives, Freddie had jumped in front of a truck for her. That was followed up with a hectic romance of sorts, which ended with the intervention of the girl standing beside you.

Whilst you'd always considered Freddie a friend, you never quite considered him as having a realistic chance with Carly. At times, you would slyly roll your eyes and almost wanted to yell at him to give up. He spoke about his 'love' for her (you knew better though, it was just a crush). You thought it almost pathetic. Almost.

As each birthday passed, you watched him change. You saw him develop as a person. You could see his devotion and loyalty towards the people in his life. Most of all, you saw how he loved your sister (he never spoke of it, but you knew better).

You didn't notice when it happened except in the most general way. You saw how he looked at Carly, in the days after he moved out of his apartment, and realized he looked at her differently.

Thinking back, you struggled to identify when he first looked like that. It took a while, but you figured it out. You first saw it when he came back from the science class retreat. And still, despite the various rejections, Freddie always acted with her feelings and happiness having the utmost importance.

You remembered asking him, in the days after they broke up, the simple question of 'why?' He took a few moments to compose himself, he replied 'because I love her and I don't know if she loves me back for real'. He wasn't pathetic at all, far from it.

Sam had never been an easy person to read, even when she was younger. It'd taken a long time for you to truly trust her around your house, and Carly. But in the same way as Freddie had, her actions spoke louder than her words and visible emotion. You watched her head fall just slightly after making another joke about her mother, once Carly and Freddie laughed, or when Freddie shot back in one of their fights using her family, you'd see her eyes drift down for a second when she thought no-one was looking.

You held her hands, cold, wet from the rain, when she would break in at 3 in the morning on random school nights. She'd say she got bored, but you knew better. Sometimes you'd take her back home the next day and she thank you, and as you drove away you could see her turn and watch until she faded in the rear view mirror. It was obvious. Sam didn't want to go back. She never did. But perhaps she was too proud to ask to stay, or didn't want people to think her a charity case.

You saw her eyes. And you saw yourself, years younger, staring back at you. Hurt, rejection, abandonment. So you took care of her, whenever she needed. No questions asked.

"We need to talk about what happened Sam. We can't just ignore it."

"There's nothing to ignore, Spencer. It was just a friendly kiss. The only reason it happened is because I was pissed at Carly and Freddie for ditching me during that stupid school dance."

"You ever see Carly kiss Freddie like we kissed each other before they hooked up?" You know the answer, no. Never. You know Sam knows it.

"What do you want me to say Spence? I kissed you, you kissed back, and then you ran away and locked yourself in your room. I don't know why you bothered, it's not like it meant anything." Sam eyes the broken butt lying on the floor.

You look over towards Freddie's tent, to see if they heard your argument. You don't see your sister, or her boyfriend (because honestly, that's how they've acted around each other since then), so you turn back around to Sam.

"Sam.. please, tell me you're lying. Don't tell me it meant nothing."

Sam turns to you, and speaks, her voice harsh, but hushed, the three words punctuated by her jabbing a finger into your fist, "It meant nothing."

You can tell she's lying. You know it in your heart. She might be good but she's not that good. You take a quick glance back over to the other tent, then swing back around to Sam. You see crack of lightning in the distance. You reach your arm around her waist, pull her towards you and then kiss her firmly on the lips just as the thunder kicks in. There's no struggle, Sam doesn't try to pull away, and instead she's kissing you back, tongues rolling and mingling together. When you pull away, you both take a few deep breaths, the foggy exhalations joining together from being so close.

"Sam. Tell me that didn't mean anything."

And you know she can't. You see in her eyes that the safety barriers she's built around you are dropping. "Sam.." You stop there, because you don't really think anything more is needed. Instead, you just pull her tight to your chest.

You hear one sniffle, and can't help but plant a kiss across the top of her head. "Spencer, don't run away from me again. Or I'll hurt you."

"I promise." You stroke her long, beautiful hair a few times, then talk again, "Sam, you're nearly 18 now and I want to ask you something." You push her back just slightly, and she looks at you with shimmering eyes. She nods her head just slightly, so you continue.

"Sam, you're old enough to start making your own choices, and I'd like to ask you to come live with me and Carly. Maybe till you go to college, but even if you don't, or you want to go to one in Seattle, I want you to stay with me."

"Spence, you don't need to look after me. I'm not a child."

"No Sam, you aren't. But you don't deserve the house you have now. I want you. I need you to stay with me. I don't want you having to walk over your Mother's passed out body, or be tired in the morning before school because you couldn't sleep over the sounds of your Mother screwing some random guy you've never seen before. I don't want anything to hold you back."

"I don't want to leave Mom." You hear another hint of a lie.

"Your Mom doesn't take care of you like I would. I'm in love with you Sam. I know you're scared. I'm scared too. But I don't care what people will say. After you turn 18, I could care less. All I care about is you, and making you happy. We might have to wait awhile before we can show anyone but Carly and Freddie, but I can wait. Will you let me care for you?" Like that, the weight on your shoulders is lifted, and you feel better than you have since that night.

It'll be a struggle, Sam's always had problems letting people into her heart, but you know in your heart, that you, Carly and Freddie are there, and none of you would ever hurt her.

"Okay." A simple word, and you have to suppress a squeal, and instead your heads are leaning into each other once more, and you feel her on your lips. And you know this is what's right. Seconds after you start kissing, you hear another booming roar, scaring the hell out of you, it sounds so close, and you spin Sam around in your arms, hide behind her and point her in the direction you think the roar came from.

As a few minutes pass, your heart has finally stopped racing (if it was the animal roar or finally telling Sam you can't be sure), and Sam laughs at you.

"Scaredy cat."

"What?" You pout, your bottom lip quivering, and this only draws another round of laughter from Sam.

"You're afraid of Bigfoot, aren't you?"

"No." Sam stares you don't.

"Okay, maybe just a little. He is pretty big you know. I guess that's why he's called Bigfoot." It doesn't work, and the staring contest continues.

"Alright, I'm scared!" You cry out, and instinctively turn to see if you woke Carly and Freddie, or at least alerted them, you have no idea what they are doing together, and whatever it is, it's probably all sweet and innocent and probably kissing a little or even just holding each other whilst they sleep. And you don't mind, because you know Freddie is far more innocent and considerate than you were at his age."

"Hah. I knew it. Chicken," Sam makes the clucking sound, and you can't help but laugh at the ridiculousness of Sam flapping her arms about like a maniac.

"Sam stop! It might attract Bigfoot!" And her chicken clucks cease, and turn into uproarious laughing, and you're sure that will have woken up anyone sleeping within 5 miles.

Of course, Carly pops her little head out of the blue tent.

"You 2 okay?" She half-yells across the clearing.

"Yes, fine thank you. And what exactly are you doing in there with Mr Benson?"

Her face turns beet red, and she stammers, "Um.. we're. Nothing!"

"Sure Mrs Benson, nothing at all." Sam chimes in. Carly glares at her best friend, and you can't help but laugh.

"What are you laughing at?"

You snort, "Mrs Benson. Good one! Don't forget to give Freddie a tick bath when you get back." Carly looks pale all of a sudden, and you realize what you just said. But it's supposed to be your job to embarrass your little sister sometimes, so you don't apologize.

"SPENCER!"

This sets Sam off into another wave of laughter, and Carly just growls in frustration, her head pops back into the tent, and you follow Sam's laughing with your own. You're about to stop, when Sam starts up even louder, and that sends you back over the edge. 5 minutes later, Sam ends up doubled over, trying to suck in air, as you pat her on the back to try and help her get her composure back.

"Tick bath. Did you see the look on her face?"

The two of you just stand there for a moment until you're both sure you won't burst out laughing again, and Sam breaks the silence, "Hey Spence, you wanna come sleep in my tent?"

"You sure, it wouldn't be weird or anything?"

"I couldn't be worse than Fredweird and Carly, could it? I wonder what moves the dork is putting on my girl."

"I really don't want to know. And yeah, okay, I will."

"One condition. You admit you want me to protect you from Bigfoot."

"Um.. fine. I want you to protect me from Bigfoot."

"I knew it! Deal. I protect you from Bigfoot, and you protect me from having to see Carly and the dork making out when we get back."

You laugh, then engulf her in a hug, kiss her, and she kisses back. You break off, and you walk together to her tent. A few yards away, you hear Sam mumble your name, you stop, lean over to hear her say, "Spencer... I love you too."

You pick her up in a bear hug, twirl her around a few times until she's screaming something about puking up the chicken you had for dinner. Sam unzips the tent, it's too small for you to sit straight in either direction, and you end up in a mess of tangled legs in your attempt to fit in diagonally.

It just feels right though.

And in the end, you realize it was a very good idea after all.

**End**

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**AN:** Written in 2nd person POV, Spencer: This is my first Sam/Spencer story (and my first 2nd person POV story), so be gentle :) There may be a Carly/Freddie companion piece. It's now 5:36am, but I did proof read, still, probably has errors.


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